Asia’s ONE Championship Takes Lead With New Esports Series

By: Chris Pursell|November 7, 2018

Asian MMA powerhouse ONE Championship is bringing esports into the ring, announcing the launch of ONE eSports, designed to serve as Asia’s largest global eSports Championship Series. ONE Championship and Dentsu Inc., Japan’s largest global advertising agency, will partner for the launch as a joint venture in 2019 with Razer, Singtel, and other top industry players also taking part in the partnership.

ONE Championship intends to lead a plan to invest up to $50 million alongside other key partners into ONE eSports to create Asia’s largest global eSports Championship Series, offering competitive play in multiple blockbuster game titles across Asia and hold a number of eSports events held alongside ONE Championship martial arts events in 2019. Earlier this year, ONE Championship announced a 30 event schedule for 2019 for its global scale martial arts events across iconic Asian cities including Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, Shanghai, Beijing, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, and many other cities.

In addition, ONE eSports will also produce and broadcast dedicated eSports content in the form of live event broadcasts, documentaries, reality shows, weekly magazine shows, highlights, video blogs, and other unique content across its global media broadcast platform in 138 countries. Also, recently-signed ONE Championship athlete Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson will help to lead the ONE eSports efforts as its Chief Brand Ambassador;

“It is with great excitement that I announce ONE eSports, Asia’s largest global eSports Championship Series. We see a natural crossover between martial arts and gaming fans in Asia and an opportunity to bring them together under Asia’s home of millennial live sports,” said Chatri Sityodtong, Chairman and CEO of ONE Championship. “ONE Championship is committed to bringing its same brand of large-scale event production and live broadcast capabilities, unique world-class content production, global media distribution, storytelling expertise, and marketing experience to ONE eSports. Our mission is to celebrate Asia’s eSports heroes on the global stage. The establishment of ONE eSports transforms ONE Championship into Asia’s largest producer of millennial sports content.”

Dentsu will serve as the dedicated marketing partner of the Japan eSports Union and will be responsible for harvesting Japanese game developers’ desire to expand in esports across Asia. Dentsu will also help to lead ONE eSports’ efforts to hold events across Japan. In addition, ONE eSports will also leverage Dentsu and Dentsu Aegis as its preferred marketing agencies for strategic marketing formulation and sponsorships around the world.

ONE eSports will also explore working with the Singtel Group, Asia’s leading communications technology group with a combined mobile customer base of over 700 million. The collaboration across Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and India will potentially include joint eSports marketing efforts, production and distribution of eSports content through the Singtel Group’s platforms, telco data bundle plans and online and offline payment services through direct carrier billing and telco wallets. This is an extension of ONE Championship’s ongoing collaboration with the Singtel Group in mixed martial arts events